First off, you kind of overvalue the Mac’s appeal to the general population by projecting what is appealing to people who like Macs to everyone. You may be surprised to find that not everyone finds Apple’s industrial design that attractive. As for quality of design and construction, we read a lot of horror stories there too. While Apple is clearly in the lead of the pack for overall quality, there are PC makers who are close to them in that area, so rather than comparing Mac to ALL PC makers (and thus, being free to find the worst examples of the MANY PC makers), real consumers tend to look at the best in each class. Of course, in the class of MacOS running computers, the best (by definition, being the only one) is Apple.

With 7-8% of the US market and 4-5% of the world market, clearly, something is holding back a lot of people.

In reality, you can divide the market into four groups: those who don’t care about MacOS (either they prefer Windows or Linux, or they have no specific preference), those who are curious about MacOS (but not enough to pay for a Mac), those who want a Mac but can’t justify the price, and those who want a Mac and can (and have bought one).

Clones, especially netbooks, would appeal to the middle two, especially if it could also run Windows or Linux.

However, the fact is that there is no way to build a reliable (or possibly even legal) Mac clone. So the people who want a Mac but can’t afford it won’t buy a clone that’s not as reliable as a real Mac (or a real Windows box, for that matter), which is impossible as long as Apple doesn’t license their OS.

The people who are Mac curious won’t buy a commercial product for pretty much the same reasons – BUT – the more tech savvy ones won’t have a problem picking up a netbook or laptop that’s known to be Hackintosh friendly and install it on the box and play with it. That’s why there’s such a thriving Hackintosh community. That bleeds up to the people who want, but can’t afford – but who are willing to put up with some rough edges.

Would a clone Mac sell? If priced more in line with PCs, yes. It would give the middle two groups an option and might even entice some of the large “indifferent” crowd. Would a Mac netbook made by Apple sell? If Apple prices it as they probably would, then no. The appeal of a netbook is a small, light, inexpensive laptop – Apple isn’t good at the inexpensive part, nor do they really get the small part down right (weirdly – given Apple’s obsession with thin).